Midlife Crisis to Midlife Chance

When the shit hit the fan. Chemotherapy, 2019. Still ordering tea.

Midlife. The word alone can make people flinch. And "midlife crisis"? That sounds even worse. Like something has gone terribly wrong. Like you've failed at life somehow, or life has failed you. But what if I told you that a midlife crisis is actually one of the greatest chances life will ever hand you?

Let me share what it looked like for me.

At some point in my mid-forties, life stopped working. Not in a dramatic, overnight kind of way. It was more of a slow dawning: I don't want to be like this anymore. My body can't cope anymore. I don't want to keep going like this. A shift in priorities. A quiet but insistent voice that said: something has to change.

And then came the moment that made it undeniable.

I was called into my boss's office. I had done nothing wrong. In fact, I had done everything right. I was a respected manager. People were proud of me. And yet, the moment I walked through that door, I became a small, scared child in front of her father. My throat tightened. My eyes prickled. Not a single word came out.

I hated it. With everything I had, I hated it.

That moment showed me something I could no longer ignore: my body was running the show. It was operating from old, deeply programmed automatic behaviour, and I was trapped inside it, unable to be who I actually wanted to be. That was the moment I decided: enough. I've had enough of this. I want to be different.

And so began the process of breaking the mould.

We grow up, most of us, living by one set of rules. Guidelines we absorbed from our families, our culture, our experiences, often before we were even old enough to question them. We function within a system, like a wheel in a machine, fulfilling our role, meeting expectations, keeping everything running. And for a while, it works. Or at least it seems to.

But then, somewhere around the halfway point of life, the cracks start to show. Life, as it has been, stops working. And that is where the crisis begins.

Here is what I've come to understand though: crisis creates chaos. And chaos is an invitation to rebuild. It's never too late to have a happy childhood, namely the one you would have wanted to have. That might sound strange, but this is precisely what the midlife crisis offers: the chance to become your own parent. To give yourself what you needed. To guide yourself through the pain. To grow through it.

In my case, the process was really like being a chick breaking out of its shell. There had been a life before the crisis, one that felt protected by the shell, but also protected from real vision and real impact. Once the shell broke, I had to learn everything new. I had to learn how to be.

There is one thing that I didn't fully appreciate at the time, but which feels increasingly important the more I reflect on it.

If we are lucky enough to live to our full life expectancy, then midlife, by definition, is the halfway line. That means that at 40, 45, 50, ahead of us lie another 40, 45, 50 years of life. Another whole lifetime. And that time is waiting to be shaped. We get to decide what it looks like. We get to apply everything we've learned in the first half. We get to turn our insights into real, lasting improvements, not just for ourselves, but for everyone whose lives we touch.

That, to me, is extraordinary. That is the chance. The midlife crisis, for all the discomfort it brings, is the reset button. It's the moment life says: you've had one half. What do you want to do with the other?

What it feels like when the shell breaks. Coincidentally, I am standing with one foot in Austria and the other in Germany, quite literally moving from one world into the other...

For me, the process of rebuilding meant going back to basics. Who am I, actually? What do I actually value? What do I need, and am I allowed to say so?

It's ok to be vulnerable. It's ok to recognise my own needs and state them, and stand up for them. It's ok to acknowledge when I can no longer meet my own impossible expectations.

These sound like small things. They are not small things.

Because what was really happening, underneath all of it, was a shift from being a million in one to being one in a million. From fulfilling everyone's demands and expectations to finally recognising my own needs. From functioning in a machine to understanding myself as one unique expression of life. One unique being, who contributes to the tapestry of life not through her function, but through her individuality. Through her way of seeing, feeling, experiencing and expressing the world.

I matter. I am currently matter, through which my spirit speaks.

I should mention, because it's part of my story, that my personal crisis was accelerated by a cancer diagnosis. My body expressed, loudly and unmistakably, what my mind had already been whispering for years: I can't do this anymore. Luckily, my mind had been a few years ahead of my body, so when the shit hit the fan, I was at least somewhat prepared. But I still had to go through it. My body taught me things my mind never could have. I didn't learn enough from thinking alone.

And the menopause, for those of us for whom that also arrives at this time (in my case it arrived rather suddenly as a side effect of cancer treatment), brings its own layer of shift and transformation. I had always known I didn't want children. I had made my peace with that, and occasionally revisited it with a certain sadness. But the hormonal changes brought one insight into sharp relief: I am not leaving a legacy through children. That means the legacy, whatever it is, has to come from me being fully, unapologetically, completely me.

So today, my values have changed. Health is my absolute first priority. Time with my tribe, my mum, my partner, my best friends and all those wonderfully weird people who tick like I do, is what matters most. And contribution is purpose. Not the contribution of a cog in a machine, but the contribution of a whole, complex, evolving human being who shows up and shines her own particular light.

I spent the first half of my life in hiding, in many ways. Now it's time to shine.

The midlife crisis is not the end of something good. It's the beginning of something real. It's the chance to break the mould that shaped you, to rebuild yourself from the inside out, on your own terms, and to step into the second half of your life with your eyes finally, fully open.

What. A. Chance.

Life. Here I come.

The sign behind me says: "Here, angels are made." I couldn't agree more.

To life. And to the second half of it.